Mississippi River Bridge
Eads designed and built the first road and rail bridge to cross the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The Eads Bridge, constructed from 1867 through 1874, was the first bridge of a significant size with steel as its primary material, and it was the longest arch bridge in the world when completed. Eads was the first bridge builder to employ the cantilever method, which allowed steam boat traffic to continue using the river during construction. The bridge is still in use today, carrying both automobile and light rail traffic over the river.
Read more about this topic: James Buchanan Eads
Famous quotes containing the words mississippi, river and/or bridge:
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Bull: The trouble is Doc, Cole was in front of the gun. The safe place is behind Mississippi when he shoots that thing.”
—Leigh Brackett (1915–1978)
“The Xanthus or Scamander is not a mere dry channel and bed of a mountain torrent, but fed by the ever-flowing springs of fame ... and I trust that I may be allowed to associate our muddy but much abused Concord River with the most famous in history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
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Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
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—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)